Why so many forums about van geet?

The spammer is advertising for a book that came out/is about to come out.

But it is a perfectly fine opening.

The forums is filled with bunch of Fan Girls wanting to promote a trash chess players book.

I doubt anyone serious about chess is going to buy that garbage.

The only Good Virtue the Van Geet Opening has is if Black plays 1…c5. Then the Van Geet player has the honor and privilege to play 2.e4 transposing into Closed Sicilian.

Its the only thing good about that dumpster opening.

If Black play 1..d5, Than white might as well resign.

Just reading those Van Geet threads makes you want to Horse Laugh. The funny part is they think they are being clever. The nerve of such people is hilarious.

A player with a straight face said he had perfect response!

He said he was going to play a Jobava London.

No offense to Jobava, but the Jobava London is just a water down version of London!

No one messes with the Original London Line!

@#3 The quality of the opening is not the issue here. The problem is that the spammer resurrected 5+ year old threads to post is the same message. It's a giant waste of time.

I understand. But #1 wrote/asked if it is a bad opening. And it is not.

Multiple GMs play / advocate for the Jobava such as Hams Neimann / Simon Williams / Hikaru Nakamura, its validity as an opening is not really up for debate at this point. And the Jobava plays very differently than the standard London, you don't get the same early kingside expansions in the London, nor do you castle queenside ... these two factors completely change the nature of the position.

1. Nc3 is definitely not a bad move. But the idea cannot be to play a Jobava. If White wants to play Jobava, then via 1. d4. Then there is no need to worry about 1... e5. If I want to play Jobava, then I don't want to have to worry about Vienna Game, 4knights, French, Sicilian, Caro Kann, etc.

No, this isn't correct.

a) the chigorin setup actually does have to worry about a french and caro-kann. However, both the Van Geet and the chigorin can transpose french / caro-kann setups into jobava-like positions that usually become the Jobava if the player wishes.

b) the van geet doesn't have to transpose into the Vienna game or the four knights. You can play the van geet in more of a d4 style, after 1... Nf6 you can transpose it it via 2. d4 right back into the chigorin setup. It's boring but you can do it.

c) Van Geet plays a sicilian but avoids the benoni (besides in very rare cases). Likewise after 1... e5 it usually plays the napoleon attack 2. Nf3 rather than the Vienna Game. But it avoids the Englund gambit.

Even so, compactness is not the only criteria by which we should assess a repertoire, lethality is an important factor as well. I don't have to play a two knights sicilian or napoleon attack, I get to play one. Both those lines are fantastic. I think this is the correct way of looking at it.

d) most importantly - even if you didn't play these Jobava transpositions - even if you played the caro-kann, the french, the vienna game - the Van Geet will still be about the same size as other openings such as 1. e4 or 1. d4. The Van Geet isn't especially large. The Jobava is not especially large, either - there are 5 common responses to it, you can learn them 10-12 moves deep and be playing it fine.

The chigorin setup in general, though, is one of the most compact in chess - you can really just respond with a pirc, a french, a caro-kann - two of which can be transposed into a jobava .... or the actual jobava itself.

Now there are some other weird anti-chigorin lines like the Alburt defense, the Irish gambit - but these are very rarely played. Not for any obvious reason, probably just because people don't know the chigorin setup well enough to bother branching out and experimenting with the other systems that could oppose it.

Not pushing c4 also seems to take away from the dynamism of the position in such a way that it gets more streamlined just toward the 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 setup.

However... there are two chigorin setups - 1. d4 d5 and 1. d4 Nf6. Van Geet players only need to worry about the former. And for this setup - every line except for 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Bf5 - the Alburt defense - transposes into a line the Van Geet player already plays.

1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 c6 - caro-kann or jobava-like position. Van Geet player already plays this via 1. Nc3 c6 2. d4 d5

1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 e6 - moving toward a french or jobava-like position. Again the Van Geet player already plays it.

1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nc6 - the Van Geet already reaches this position via 1. Nc3 Nc6 2. d4 d5

1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 c5 3. Nf3 - the Van Geet reaches this already via 1. Nc3 c5 2. Nf3 d5 3. d4

So no, it's really not some huge repertoire exploding in size. Basically you're playing the Jobava but there's no new sideline in the chigorin you need to worry about besides the Alburt defense.

"Why so many forums about van geet?" ++ It seems FM Bruno Dieu is promoting his own book.
"is not that a bad opening?" ++ No, developing a knight cannot be bad, but it will transpose as soon as white moves a pawn.

Just ignore them OP

No one takes the Van Geet seriously - I can’t even believe someone would waste time and money to even create such a book about it. What a waste of Trees & Paper!

After the critical moves, The white position is suffering.

The Knight on c3 is clearly misplaced blocking the C pawn.

The C pawn wants to be on c4 with Knight on c3.

Instead, the Knight is on c3 with pawn on c2

This is creating what is known as “Bad” Marriage

- International Master John Bartholomew is very vocal about this issue!

————————————

Furthermore, The viability of the Jobava London is still in question as far as I’m concerned.

Just because handful of chess players like it doesn’t mean anything!

Their is handful of people who like Scandy - Doesn’t change the fact that Scandy is trash.

What about the Jerome Gambit?

People just love Jerome Gambit!

Oh, yeah - Title players just can’t get enough so amazing!

Doesn’t change anything!

Those die hard fanboys will love it to bitter end.

Looking at your games you've never even played the Jobava, I don't see why anyone would take you seriously in this thread.

You say no one takes the Jobava seriously, but multiple GMs clearly do take it seriously. And you do not speak on behalf everyone - you're babbling nonsense yet again.

A few points -

- The GMs I mention haven't just played it a few times, they've used it consistently as part of their repertoires and in tournament settings. They don't describe it as a surprise weapon, they've made "lifetime repertoire" courses on it and talk about it as if it is a perfectly sound and viable opening.

- In many lines, early on in the opening, the Jobava has a 60-70% winrate at 2200+ level on lichess. The Scandinavian doesn't get numbers anywhere near that, it's not remotely as trappy or effective. The Scandinavian is also like -0.35 by leela whereas the Jobava is pretty much all 0.00, so what is the comparison you're making based on?

- You play the Grunfeld which is just the most theoretical and rehearsed opening, you study it carefully and play the same moves every game... so it's not much surprise you dislike the Jobava seeing as the mindset behind the opening is antithetical to your approach to the game. If I had to guess I'd say the Jobava probably has annoyed you at some point, you probably lost to it, probably because it forced you to step outside of those well rehearsed lines you've been studying for 20 years or however long it is

- the Jobava is basically equal according to the engine. People already assume going into it with perfect play that it's a draw, so what are you holding your breath about? There's no scenario where black proves a win in the Jobava, it is 0.00, what black could hope for is to prove equality, or at best some slight engine edge - like 1/10th of a pawn. But the Jobava player already is of a mind to concede equality, the engine already says it's zeroes so... your point is what?

- The Jobava doesn't have a refutation, but even if it did - this would be no reason to write off the entire opening and never learn it or use it. For one, the way you get good against openings is by playing them. But furthermore... you can transpose into lines in the Jobava from many places, including the London, the Caro-Kann, the French, the Van Geet and the Reti... if you don't like certain lines - you don't have to play them!

In the Van Geet you don't have to choose just either a d4 or e4 approach across the board - you can just as easily play a caro-kann, but then transpose just the french into the jobava (maybe you don't like the french or you feel french players don't get enough surprises), play a vienna falkbeer gambit against 1... Nf6, and then play the mainline jobava against 1... d5. Even the regular chigorin setup allows you to choose whether to play a mainline caro-kann or a jobava, for example.

The chigorin repertoire can just be made into something super-compact - you're not incurring some massive theoretical debt by mixing and matching lines in the Van Geet is my point. No more than you do in 1. e4, 1. d4, 1. Nf6, 1. c4, etc.

all these super GMs have played the opening -

Carlsen, Mamadyarov, Grischuk, Vachier Lagrave, Nepomniachtchi, Aronian, Nakamura, Ivanchuk, Raport, Firouzja, Andreikin (lots of times)

Infact I see a game with Carlsen transposing into the Jobava from the Van Geet

@19

Those games are blitz games.

No, they're not even all blitz games, Carlsen vs. Urkedal is a rapid game. Carlsen has 2 blitz games and 1 rapid game in the Van Geet.

@22

None of these GM games are classical games.

I don't know how you even checked that information, all I see is the name of the event, there is no time control descriptor attached to the game you just have to go by whether 'blitz' or 'rapid' is in the events name. Anyway, it's irrelevant since the Van Geet transposes into mainline openings that are all fundamentally sound, how the opening was reached does not matter very much. Unless you're suggesting the Jobava has never been played in a classical game. I'm not aware of any evidence of that and it seems like an absurd claim, so...

imagine believing first move matters